A commission from Player Festival at the Science Museum this summer.

BATTLESHIPS : OCEAN APOCALYPSE

A live version of the classic vector thriller.  Teams must assemble a fleet from the models in the Shipping Gallery and try to identify and destroy that of their opponent.

Teams : 2

Players : up to 20 (10 per team)

Gameplay:

Each team is given a map of the space, and forms Admiralty HQ at either end of the gallery.  They then have 4 minutes to select a fleet.  This is done by physically cruising around the gallery to select one model from each of the following categories

Warship

Cargo

Passenger

Sail

Paddle

Keep an eye on what your opponents are selecting and remember some models fit in more than one category

The teams mark the name and location of each ship in their fleet on a Ship Card, these are kept at Admiralty HQ.

Attack

From Admiral HQ each team sends five torpedoes (players named Torpedo 1, Torpedo 2 etc) to try to hit one of their opponent's ships.  Each torpedo is released on the command "Fire Torpedo (X)" and has 1 minute to define a target.  This is done by noting the cabinet and name of the ship on a Torpedo Card and returning to Admiralty HQ.

Damage Report

By turns each each Torpedo is asked what their target is.  They respond with e.g., "C5 H.M.S Nelson" where C5 refers to the display cabinet and 'paddle steamer' the distinct model within it.  The opposing team will answer either "Miss" if neither cabinet nor model are correct, "Near Miss" if the cabinet is correct but the model is not, and "Hit" if both cabinet and model correctly identified.

After all 10 Torpedoes have responded another Attack round begins with different players taking up the role of Torpedo.

Repeat until either one team achieves glory through the total annihilation of the other, or 20 mins runs out.  In this case the team with the greater number of Hits is the victor.